Attendance allowance

He worked at Cumhuriyet for a full 21 years. He received a salary and royalties, whatever was going. This did not suffice; he found it to be on the low side and also took an attendance allowance that nobody on foundation management had taken until this time.
The person I am referring to is a former minister and former Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality general secretary.
It is, after all, an important detail in terms of demonstrating this gentleman’s “motivation for complaining” as Akın Atalay put it.
This chap is playing the leading role in the operation to prosecute Cumhuriyet in which four Cumhuriyet staffers are still being held in custody. His perjury in court was exposed by Akın Atalay.
It appears that the chap who ran to the police clutching Cumhuriyet cuttings on the day the Cumhuriyet staffers were arrested sent the same cuttings to the Palace and begged:
“You are our last hope. Please be so good as to intervene and give Cumhuriyet newspaper to us.”
Who is this “us” he refers to?
It appears that he was referring to himself along with one of Aydınlık newspaper’s columnists who gave testimony on the same day. Sorry, “The almighty and the celestial sphere stand witness that he is Turkey’s best writer.”
So much so that the prosecutor came to this opinion, too, and made him a witness in the Cumhuriyet trial. He also found himself empowered to try and convict the journalism of people he had not worked with and did not know. How come? Because a serialised article of his appeared in Cumhuriyet in 1983. This “great writer” with a well-developed sense of proprietorship felt himself responsible for the newspaper because his serialised article appeared there.
We are speaking of one who has “sold” his pen. I do not say this; he does. He said in court about the “The greatest nationalist is Fethullah Gülen” article he penned in 2011 that, “I was pressurised into writing this article by Güneş newspaper’s management.” In fact, this is what he said in court, but, on a radio programme on which he appeared one day later, he claimed that that article was actually a “humorous article.” We are dealing either with a “great writer” whose mental health is impaired or a perjurious “witness”.
Well, let us read the second most prominent headline (i.e. the second leading story - thanks to these people everybody has become obliged to learn about journalism terminology) on yesterday’s front page of this “witness’s” newspaper:
“In Germany the pointer is turning towards Eurasia.”
“We can say that, even if Merkel’s party is first, surprise results emerged from the ballot boxes in Germany. We can say that the forces that are uniting against the hegemony of America, the centre of Atlanticism, won the elections.”
They have set out more clearly what they want to say in the reefer:
“Heading the post-election debate over the results is the entry into Federal Parliament of the AfD as the third party. Parties labelled “left” have started protests claiming that fascism is being resurrected. However, the key points in the AfD’s manifesto number among things ruling and opposition parties stand for. These views bear witness to Europe and Germany moving away from the Atlantic and closer to Eurasia.”
Yes, a report that is manifestly contrived to prettify the racist AfD party.
There is no better example that could elucidate the approach to journalism of those who presume to put Cumhuriyet on trial and beg the Palace for the newspaper.
Of you go and beg the Palace for a different newspaper for yourselves. Grace us with your non-attendance. We have no “attendance allowance” at our paper to give you.
You know that another thing happened at that hearing. Star and Sabah newspapers reported that our colleagues’ “continued detention” had been ordered before the interim ruling had even been announced.
The presiding judge accepted Ahmet Şık’s criminal complaint against the leakers of this news. So, what happened? For two days, these regime lackeys and their lie tellers have kept up an outcry with a whole host of excuses ranging from, supposedly, “Come on, there’s nothing to be blown out of proportion” to a “professional technical error” or, it seemingly being “a tweet whose bottom part was live for five minutes.”
Gentlemen, you unleashed a lynch mob on Cumhuriyet.com.tr’s Editor-in-Chief Oğuz Güven for a Tweet that was up for 55 seconds.Güven, having spent 30 days in detention, is still being prosecuted.